ODU Joins Six Virginia Universities in Sharing Research Resources

July 12, 2017

This initiative will accelerate the commercialization of Virginia's innovations, creating more high-potential start-up companies, producing many more high-paying jobs, and growing the Commonwealth's biosciences economy.

Old Dominion University joined recently with seven academic research institutions in Virginia in an agreement to share core facilities and resources in a collaborative effort to advance life sciences and other areas of research in the Commonwealth.

This initiative will accelerate the commercialization of Virginia's innovations, creating more high-potential start-up companies, producing many more high-paying jobs, and growing the Commonwealth's biosciences economy.

The Vice Presidents for Research from the University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Eastern Virginia Medical School, George Mason University, Old Dominion University, Virginia Tech and William & Mary, working together with Virginia Catalyst, have achieved a breakthrough in collaborations that will greatly increase Virginia's competitiveness nationally and globally.

"Old Dominion University has long been a proponent of collaboration, in disciplines from flooding-resiliency to cybersecurity," said Old Dominion President John R. Broderick. "We are happy to be part of this effort, which will maximize the ability of all institutions to conduct cutting-edge research to address the Commonwealth's most important priorities."

Virginia Biosciences Health Research Corporation, now known as the Virginia Catalyst, is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation funded by the Virginia General Assembly's general fund and seven of Virginia's research universities.

The organization has now awarded 24 grants totaling $10 million, combined with $20 million in matching funds, which financed the achievement of meaningful milestones. This then resulted in follow-on funding of an additional $80 million and the creation of high-paying jobs throughout the Commonwealth.

Participating universities have agreed to provide reciprocal access to shared research and development resources. The institutions have individually made significant investments to acquire specialized equipment and establish unique research laboratories to support basic, translational and clinical research.

To further enhance the availability of these existing resources, the institutions seek to share, in an economical manner, specialized technical services and access to equipment and expertise for research purposes.

"As ODU expands its strategy of collaborating with other Virginia research universities," this new agreement provides motivation and means for doing so," said Morris Foster, Old Dominion University vice president for research. "In the end, we're all one Virginia."

The memorandum of understanding will be reviewed biannually and could be amended at those times. Other state institutions are also encouraged to become signatories of the MOU.